VP/ix and Merge instruction sets (Was: Re: Can protected mode...)

[John Plocher]

+-- In <16784 at nuchat.UUCP> Steve Nuchia writes
| In article <128383 at sun.Eng.Sun.COM> John Plocher writes:
| >No, DosMerge and VP/ix both run DOS in a virtual 8086 environment.
| 
| What about the 32 bit instructions?  If one is content to live with
+--

If the instructions exist on the 8086 you can use them in the
virtual 8086 mode.  This is a "hardware" mode of the 80386, not
a software emulation under Unix.  If the program won't run on
an IBM XT, it won't run under 80386 VP/ix or 80386 Merge.

The Microport 80286 Merge runs the DOS programs in Real Mode
on the '286, so a program "could" switch into protected mode
and do stuff, but it *WOULD* corrupt the memory and data
structures used by Unix; the program would crash when the next
interrupt came in :-)

    -John Plocher